


More Ways Television Can Kill You

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Case leads come from the oddest places…</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Ways Television Can Kill You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://clex-monkie89.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://clex-monkie89.livejournal.com/)**clex_monkie89** on her birthday.

x-x-x-x-x

It’s Boston, it’s summer, and the heat is climbing.

The geriatric motel-room air-conditioner offers little relief from the humidity, and it is almost too hot to sleep.

Dean leafs through Dad’s journal looking for clues. The victims are exhausted, their skin bubbling and damaged, and the condition usually progresses into death. There is nothing in the notes. These are almost— _almost_ — classic vampire symptoms, but unless the vampire packs corrosive acid as part of his particular kink, that just can’t be it.

Sam’s eyes are glazed over at another re-run of Seinfeld, as he sprawls on his stomach across the ratty-looking bed. Commercials flicker through the break, strobing fast-food panoramas, previews of the evening’s lineup.

“That’s it!” Sam says suddenly.

Dean glances at the TV screen. “That’s what you’re going to take to help you sleep?” he asks. “Could be expensive.”

“No,” Sam scoffs. “That’s what’s happening to those people.”

“A _sleeping pill commercial_ is what’s attacking them? Well, everyone says television is evil.”

“Not a commercial—that toxic green butterfly _in_ the commercials. It’s poisoning them.”

Sam’s been awake too long. “That’s a commercial, Sam—not real.”

And apparently he’s in a mood too: “Yes, unlike the vampires and ghouls and ghosts we hunt, because _everyone_ agrees _those_ are real,” Sam snarks.

“You’re… serious, aren’t you?” Dean asks.

“Of course I am!” Sam’s off the bed, shoving tools into a backpack.

Dean makes no move to get up. _Is this a side-effect of the visions? Because the insanity part is definitely new._

“Well? Are you coming? We have to stop by a sporting-goods store.”

_What-the-loonymuffin-ever_ , Dean thinks, but he grabs his keys and his guns and they’re off.

Later, they prowl through an upscale townhouse area just watching and waiting.

“I feel ridiculous,” Dean mutters.

Sam chuckles. “Really? Because I think the butterfly net is rather becoming.”

“If someone sees us—and they will, I guarantee it—we’re going to be wearing straightjackets for the next month.”

“Attitude, Dean, attitude.”

Sam scans the area with his night-vision goggles, while Dean has a surreal moment. _Okay, this is so beyond freaky that... I can’t possibly be awake_.

“Look!” Sam hisses.

Darting and twirling out of an upstairs window across the street, a glowing green pair of wings wends through the air toward them. _Jeez, you’d think people would keep their windows closed. Haven’t they ever heard of burglars? Or West Nile virus?_

Sam creeps out into the street, closer, closer. He jumps like a lacrosse champion and scoops the creature into his net.

Dean runs over to check it out. “Now what?” he says.

“I’d say ‘Take me to your leader,’ but I doubt it would understand. Plus, the net is starting to smoke. I think it’s dissolving it.”

Dean stomps on the whole thing Judo-fast, and the butterfly is dead.

“Ewww,” Sam complains, mangled green mixed in with string.

“Shake it off and rinse it out,” Dean says. “There might be more.”

Indeed, there are. They spend the next two hours stalking and jumping— _swoop/stomp, swoop/stomp_ — until a little old lady walking her dog passes by. Sam and Dean wrangle sheepishly with an explanation, but ten minutes later there are sirens in the air.

“Figures,” Dean mutters. They rush up around to the side street where the Impala is parked under a huge tree, and Dean drives away as sedately as his self-control can handle.

“So, new neighborhood now?” Sam asks.

“What? No.” Dean steers back toward the cheap haven of the motel.

“But it’s dangerous! It’s unnatural. It’s got to be our kind of thing.”

“Sam,” Dean begins patiently, “If people don’t have the sense to keep the house locked up at night, there’s not much we can do. I mean the two of us—nationwide—against the march of Darwinism? Ain’t gonna happen.”

“So we’re giving up?” Sam says incredulously.

“Can’t fight the tide, can’t save all of humanity. Sometimes you have to leave the battle behind.”

An unusual admission for Dean, but Sam can see his point. “So now what?”

“Now? Back to bed until we just can’t take anymore—because I am totally damn tired after that little escapade. And then tomorrow…”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got some leads on that ping-pong-ball-headed body snatcher I need to check out.”

Sam’s working the wicked smile now. “You know that if you destroy their founder, they probably won’t let you eat there anymore, right?”

Dean shrugs manfully. “I know. But we’re Winchesters. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

Sam nods his head in response to Family Rule #14, and clicks on the cassette machine of endless metal mania.

The music pumps and the Impala rumbles, and the night… rolls on.

 

_\------- fin -------_


End file.
